


Option Number Two

by Wynn



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Bucky likes cooking, Darcy likes music, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Humor, Power Stance #1, Romance, Sexual Tension, The full Barnes, some light cursing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-27
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-05-03 15:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5297069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wynn/pseuds/Wynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy doesn’t mean to lurk. Really, she doesn’t. She’s learned her lesson about lurking with the infamous marmalade incident with Tony and Scott. Except… who couldn’t <em>not</em> lurk when Bucky Barnes was cursing up a storm in the common room of the new Avengers complex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Option Number Two

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt from kittywings01: _Oooh! Darcy/Bucky (of course), him trying to figure out how to load a playlist onto her ipod (caught? tech issues? sweet and fluffy success? you choose!)_
> 
> No offense meant if you like J-Pop, Matchbox 20, or the Goo Goo Dolls. The latter reference my headcanon of Jane liking the most innocuous rock and roll that she can find, much to Darcy's chagrin.
> 
> I do not own the characters of Darcy and Bucky. Marvel do. I'm just playing in their sandbox for a while for non-profit, entertainment purposes only.

Option Number Two  
By: Wynn

Darcy doesn’t mean to lurk. Really, she doesn’t. She’s learned her lesson about lurking with the infamous marmalade incident with Tony and Scott. Except… who couldn’t _not_ lurk when Bucky Barnes was cursing up a storm in the common room of the new Avengers complex. Well, sane people, she supposed, Bucky the former Winter Soldier and capable of extreme murderous feats with a minimum of effort. Yet Darcy hadn’t been sane for a long time, at least not according to her mother, not since she abandoned her full-ride scholarship at Culver to follow Jane around the world. And all that she’d seen of Bucky since he arrived at the complex was a kind of sad but really hot dude who loved warm sweaters, old timey science fiction, and food.

Lots of food.

That Darcy could appreciate. She, too, loved food, particularly the eating of it. The making of it, not so much. But Bucky did. After he’d arrived, he threw himself into learning how to cook with the fervor of someone dealing with some heavy shit and using a new hobby to do so. He had claimed the kitchen closest to his quarters with Steve and, after a few weeks, had it arranged to his particular preferences. Most of the team gave him space in which to deal. Steve came often, of course, offering to help clean up the particularly epic culinary experiments. Sam did too, suggesting recipes and taking Bucky to the farmer’s market to buy ingredients. The rest of the team waited until Bucky delivered the approved creations to the common room.

Except Darcy of course.

She hadn’t meant to. Okay, she totally had, but _accidentally_. She hadn’t known that that specific kitchen was the one that belonged to Bucky. Or she had, but she’d forgotten, Jane keeping her up until four in the morning to transcribe weirdo chicken scratch into actual words. At that time, all higher brain functioning ceased and Darcy basically regressed to a monosyllabic zombie. No one in that state could be held responsible for their actions, least of all one that led to such a delicious discovery as homemade macaroni and cheese. It had just been sitting on the counter all by itself, still steaming and mouthwatering in its blue dish. She couldn’t abandon it. She was a hero. Or a hero’s intern, which was basically the same thing.

Basically. 

Bucky found her four minutes later hunched around the dish like a caveman over a kill, a fourth of the macaroni already gone and a heavy forkful halfway to her mouth. He stopped dead in the doorway when he saw her and Darcy did too. Both of their eyes went wide, Bucky’s at realizing that his sacred cooking space had been violated by a nefarious interloper and Darcy’s at realizing that she was the nefarious interloper. She briefly considered making a run for it before realizing that (a) Bucky was blocking the lone doorway, (b) he already knew where she lived so there was nowhere for her to run anyway, and (c) this was the best macaroni and cheese she’d ever eaten in her life, which made it quite possibly worth dying for.

See above, re: the lack of higher brain functioning and potential sanity.

With that in mind, Darcy went with option number two.

Slowly, so very slowly, her eyes still wide and locked on Bucky, she leaned over, plucked a fork from the drying rack in the sink, and held it out to him while simultaneously shoving what might have been the last bite of macaroni and cheese she ever had in her life into her gaping mouth. 

One minute and twenty-seven seconds later, after Bucky had stopped laughing, he joined her and they finished off the entire dish, much to Steve’s disappointment the next day when he poked his nose into the kitchen hoping for a tasty treat. Bucky invited her back the next day and the next after that and the next, foisting upon her very willing stomach all of his off-book creations. 

Now, two months later, Darcy can add ‘Cooking Lackey to the Winter Soldier’ to her résumé beside ‘Science Intern to the Potential Future Queen of Asgard.’ So when she hears Bucky in the common room cursing up a blue streak, she stops. She doesn’t intend to lurk. She intends to go in and ask him what’s wrong, if she can help, maybe suggest they go finish the raspberry gelato they made a couple of days ago. But when she steps into the doorway of the common room, she sees Bucky hunched over her laptop like a caveman about to kill and all thought of asking what’s wrong flies from her head. 

Instead, she lurks.

Tension tightens his shoulders and the part of his face that she can see. He glares at her laptop, still where she left it on the coffee table before her favorite armchair, but now on and displaying something unsatisfactory to Bucky. Lifting herself up on her toes, Darcy tries to see at what he’s staring, but all she can glimpse is the top of her screen. Before she can move for a better vantage point, Bucky snorts and runs a hand back through his hair.

“You said this would be easy.”

Darcy gawks for approximately six seconds before she realizes Bucky’s not berating _her_ for her incorrect assessment of whatever it is he’s doing, but someone else on the other end of the phone that he clutches. 

Said person finishes their response, prompting Bucky to say, “I did that. I know how to plug in a USB, Sam. I got the stuff off the drive too. That’s not it.” A shorter pause follows, then, clearly frustrated, “It’s full, that’s what. 128 gigabytes, and it’s fucking _full_.”

As Sam replies, Darcy frowns. Her iPod? Why would Bucky care about her iPod? Okay, so she made him listen to the entirety of the _Amelie_ soundtrack the other day, but he was trying to teach her how to make the perfect crepe, and it fit. And, yeah, so the J-Pop she foisted upon him during the sushi session was a bit much, but it fit. 

It _fit_.

“Yeah, but what?” he asks now. “I don’t know who half these people are. I don’t want to take off one of her favorites.”

His silence stretches on longer this time as Sam speaks. Darcy watches as Bucky reaches for her laptop, but she can’t see what he does because she’s short but he’s not. Curiosity pulls at her though like a deranged cat with a mouse, so she stretches up on her toes even more to try to peer around him. Yet as she does, her right shoe squeaks every so lightly against the hardwood floor, making Bucky jump up and around, his phone raised and poised to throw.

His eyes widen when he spots her. Then the phone squawks, Sam saying something. Bucky jerks his arm back down and ends the call, shoving the phone into his back pocket. “You’re supposed to be working,” he says, attempting, subtly, to shift between her and her computer.

Darcy blinks at him as she lowers herself back down to the ground. “I am. But I forgot my notes for Jane.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. They’re on the coffee table. The blue folder.” She pauses then, her surprise giving way to potent curiosity. “You know, the one that’s right next to my computer.” 

Bucky narrows his eyes, but he doesn’t spill the beans at her more than blatant prompt. Instead, he plants himself more firmly before her computer, thus denying Darcy the sweet knowledge that she craves. Which means that she needs to break out the big guns, aka Power Stance #1, her arms crossed over her chest and her expression Natasha wry. 

“There are secrets on that computer, you know. Galactic secrets.”

Bucky mirrors her pose and actually achieves the power in the Power Stance. “Is that right?”

“Yes. I could have you thrown in space jail just for looking at it.”

Bucky cocks a brow. “Space jail.”

“Yes. Space jail. I do know Thor.”

“So do I.”

“Look,” Darcy says as she waves a hand at him, “all I’m saying is, just tell me what you were doing here, and I won’t have to report you. That’s the last thing you’d want. Jane can get a _mite_ tetchy about her secret space files, and she packs a mean punch in her spindly little arms.”

Again, Bucky says nothing. He just stares at her and Darcy stares right back, beginning an epic cowboy standoff for the ages, or at least as long as she can hold off laughing. She folds her arms over her chest again and thinks of baseball to distract herself, only to stop as she realizes thinking of baseball is the absolute _worst_ thing for her to do because the only time that people think about baseball is during _sex_ , and thinking of sex while fifteen feet away from Bucky Barnes is the absolute worst thing to do because this is not the first time she’s thought about it in connection with him. Or the second. Or even the third. And her memory is second only to her imagination in terms of functionality, as evidenced by the images swirling through her brain right now of Bucky feeding her macarons while simultaneously performing shirtless pull-ups on one of those salmon ladders that she saw once in an episode of _Arrow_. 

“Darcy?”

She startles at the sound of his voice. Her eyes snap back into focus, landing first, of course, on his chest. Darcy thinks she might whimper at the sight of all that blue cotton stretched tight over his pecs. Seriously, what was it with supersoldiers and their tight t-shirts? Were he and Steve _that_ oblivious to correct clothing sizes, or was it a scheme, a dastardly scheme to conquer the world by stunning everyone into an incapacitating haze of lust?

“Darcy?”

She startles again, her gaze flying up to his eyes, which, of course, are frowning at her and her rapidly flushing face. “What? _What?_ What?”

His brows lift to his hairline. “Are you okay?”

“No. No, I’m not.”

“What—”

“The secrets, dude. The space secrets that you have so grievously violated.”

Bucky gives her a look then. “The only secret anywhere near your computer is how exactly you managed to fill 128 gigs worth of space in just 2 weeks.”

“It’s a gift. Also, my iPod is your focus, not my computer. Interesting.” As Bucky narrows his eyes at her again, Darcy strives to steady her breathing. “Are you looking for music suggestions from Old Bessie? Is that what brought you here today? I knew you liked the J-Pop we listened to last week.”

Bucky gives her another look to convey _exactly_ what he thought of the J-Pop Darcy foisted upon him, and if she weren’t still so flustered from her previously pervy thoughts, she’d break. As it is, she merely arches another imperious brow, causing him to huff out a sigh.

“I’m not here for suggestions.”

“No? Then what?”

Bucky doesn’t respond to her questions. He turns instead and grabs the blue folder with her notes before making his way toward her. He’s careful to keep himself between her and her computer, which would frustrate the curious part of Darcy, but the lecherous part of her is doing a little jig of joy at the sight of him ambling toward her, demonstrating as he moves the wondrousness of the male center of gravity.

“Here.” 

Bucky stops before her and holds out the folder, but Darcy doesn’t take it. Instead, she stares at him, her curiosity rearing once more now that he’s stopped moving. “Seriously? That’s all you’re going to give me? What you’re _not_ doing here.”

He cocks a brow at her again. “It’s a surprise. Or it was supposed to be.”

The revelation destroys all pretense of cool. Darcy praises herself for at least resisting the urge to bounce up and down like a kid on Christmas morning. However, she’s unable to stop the goofy grin that breaks out across her face. “Oooh. A surprise. To what do I owe this honor?”

Bucky again says nothing to her question. He lowers the folder and looks away instead, down to the floor. The silence stretches between them, so long Darcy starts to become concerned, but just as she’s just about what’s wrong, his gaze flicks back up to her. She doesn’t get what the others say about him, how Bucky’s hard to read because he doesn’t talk, because his eyes tell the truth to her as plainly as if he had spoken it out loud.

“Oh.”

Bucky looks away again, lifting a hand and running it through his hair. “Yeah.”

Darcy wishes she could do more than blink at him, but she can’t, her brain-to-mouth connection severed by this revelation. He likes her. He _likes_ her. Bucky Barnes likes _her_. “Wow.”

Bucky nods. He stares at the floor and Darcy stares at him and the seconds pass and then, softly, he says, “I don’t have to if—”

“No! I mean, yes! I mean— shit. _Shit_.”

Darcy ducks her head and grimaces at the word vomit. Stupid brain. Stupid, stupid brain. 

“You mean shit?” he asks after a moment. 

She looks up at him to glare, but the small smile on his face just makes her shake her head. “Shut up. You know what I mean.”

Bucky eyes her a moment, saying nothing, then, to her complete and utter doom, he tilts his head back to give her the full Barnes. She realizes, seeing it now in person from the real deal himself, that no actor, not one, not even James Dean or DiCaprio in that obvious Oscar grab that came out while she was in high school, has ever captured the look perfectly. Because the full Barnes is devastating. Head tilted back and chin lifted, his eyes peering and dark. Her heart rate kicks up several dozen notches as he stares at her, and her unmentionable bits begin to tingle and warm, and all the while that asshole just stares at her, taking it all in, because, Power Stance #1 notwithstanding, Darcy is _not_ Natasha, she doesn’t have a poker face to save her life, so all the chaos that Bucky stirs within her is perfectly visible on her traitorous face.

And therefore perfectly discernable to him.

But he says nothing about it, he just stares at her. After a moment, though, the small uptick to his mouth widens to a full and equally as devastating grin. Darcy strives for composure, but her face betrays her again, blooming with a smile of her own. She shakes her head and tries to look away, but her eyes follow her face and betray her too, drifting back to the gorgeous hunk of man before her. She rolls her eyes as she spies the smug tilt to his lips. Laughing, Bucky holds the folder out to her once more. Darcy reaches out to finally take it from his hands, but this time _he_ holds on, at least until she looks up at him again.

“Hypothetically speaking,” he says as he eases a step or so forward, bringing himself even closer to her. “If you were to delete something from your iPod, what would it be?”

Darcy shrugs, faux casual, but her heart pounds fast at his proximity, at the sudden descent of his voice into a rough and tumble intimacy. “It depends on what you’re adding,” she says. “There’s a delicate balance, you know. A melding of flavors, if you will. If you add too much of one style, suddenly your iPod’s too sugary, all sweet and gooey love songs. But you go too far in the other direction, and it’s too bitter, all 90s grunge and sad blues.”

Bucky gives her a look for her not-so-subtle attempt to pry more information out of him, but he must be desperate for he gives, just an inch. “It’s a playlist.”

“Oooh. I love playlists. What kind is it? Old music? New music? Rock, big band—”

“It’s not one kind. And that’s all you’re getting out of me otherwise there won’t be a surprise.”

Darcy narrows her eyes at him, but Bucky holds firm. “Fine,” she says, huffing out a sigh that makes him laugh. “Delete Matchbox 20 and the Goo Goo Dolls. I downloaded them for Jane, but she finally let me show her how to add music to her Stark phone so she’s good to go.”

Bucky nods. He releases the folder and eases back, careful again to keep himself between Darcy and her computer. 

She can’t help but smile at his efforts to maintain the surprise. “So how long are you gonna make me wait?” 

“I was thinking dinner tonight. If you’re free,” he adds after a pause.

“I am.”

His grin returns as the last of the tension slips away. “Good.” 

Darcy nods. She gazes at him a moment longer before she starts to back away. Bucky follows, at least until the doorway, where he leans, his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans. She goes breathless at the sight, feels butterflies and lightning bugs flutter within her. “Music and food. You sure know the way to a gal’s heart.”

He tilts his head back and gives her once more the full Barnes. “That’s the plan. Now get the hell out of here so I can woo you properly.”

Darcy laughs and Bucky does too. He waits until she’s made it to the elevator before returning to her computer and his playlist surprise. Humming softly, Darcy presses the call button, thankful now for utterly ignoring her mother’s advice about lurking in places that she shouldn’t be.

*


End file.
